Ernst Schmidt - Founder

We are dedicated to crafting beautiful, elegant and stylish pool tables. Building quality and value into every product insures our customer will receive the standard of craftsmanship our legacy demands.

Our Family Heritage

Condensing a history of a family business that has been around since
1850 is not quite as easy as you might think! That has been my task
over the past few month's--most idea's have been rejected by our very
talented web designer as too long---too boring---too detailed. After a
lot of thought, I reasoned that A.E.Schmidt is not about buildings we
have occupied, when people lived and died. It should be about people!
Who were the people who built a company strong enough to last 160 plus
years from nothing. What were they like and what did they do to make
their mark!

Ernst Schmidt (the founder) Ernst immigrated from Celle Germany around
1848. St. Louis was an attractive place to settle at the time. It was
a large city with lots of opportunity! Ernst was a master craftsman and
more importantly an ivory turner of high skill. Seeing the demand he
quickly set up shop. His shingle read:

Ernst Schmidt Ivory Turner xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx
Xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx

By all accounts his business was successful, he was a craftsman and
thought like one. While he could speak English, most of his
instructions were written on a chalk board in German. He had very old
world idea's and proved it when he brought his son Oscar into the
business at age five to learn the trade (a tradition that still
continues today). It was very much a working mans type of existence,
much like a plumber, electrician or other trade. Very little thought
was given to the future, and he was content to get a project, complete
it and move on to the next part to make. That was all about to change!
Read on, most companies are doomed when the founder turns over the key's
to the second generation---but Oscar would prove to be an exception to
the rule!